Category Archives: Foodie Friday

In an effort to eat more seasonally, we’ve been eating a lot of heavier soups and stews and things. All of the delicious winter squashes and sweet potatoes are fantastic and so good for us, but sometimes I just really crave a great salad.

When I saw this salad on Deliciously Ella, I thought it might fit the bill. The very fact that I can consider making something full of mushrooms like this goes to show how amazing and adventurous Josh is. After a lifetime of hating mushrooms, he’s slowly started trying them more and more over the last few months. Now he’ll happily eat a soup full of mushrooms or a portabella mushroom sandwich. SO awesome.

This salad is one of those dishes that winds up being far more delicious than you could possibly believe it could be. I took my first bite and I’m sure my eyes got huge. It was just so good, full of textures and flavor. I inhaled my portion and licked the plate. No lie.

We liked it so much that it’s also going on our meal plan for this week as well. When a dish makes the cut two weeks in a row, you know it’s good. The fact that it’s also great for us is an added bonus. Remember, especially when you’re using such simple ingredients in such a simple way, quality will make all the difference in the world.

2 bowls of spinach (we actually used tatsoi, an asian green, from a local farm, but spinach would be great)

2 jalapeno peppers, deseeded and diced

a dozen cherry tomatoes

4 Tbsp apple cider vinegar (we love Bragg’s raw unfiltered)

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp smoked paprika

salt

olive oil

Cut the sweet potatoes into small cubes and place them on a baking tray. Toss with olive oil, salt, paprika and cinnamon. Bake for 15-20 minutes at 375, until soft.

While these cook slice the mushrooms into pieces and gently stir fry them with olive oil, salt, apple cider vinegar and the chopped jalapeño pepper. This should take about 7 minutes. Add your spinach and toss around for 2-3 minutes until wilted.

In our group of friends here we have a lot of people with food allergies. Gluten, dairy, nuts… the list goes on and on.

We had a chili cook off recently and one of the gluten free girls mentioned how much she missed cornbread. I knew that there had to be a quick and easy (and cheap) way to make it for her, so I told her I’d take care of it.

I spent a good bit of time online looking at various recipes. Some called for up to 4 or 5 specialty flours that there was no way I was going to buy for one dish. Seriously. Cornbread should be cheap. I was raised on Jiffy cornbread in the blue box, which is a staple for most poor large families.

I finally found a few recipes that were simple enough, and after combining and tweaking them, came up with this one. Luckily, since I was making it for a crowd without tasting it first, it turned out great.

Gluten Free Cornbread

1 cup milk of choice (I used rice milk.)

1 tbsp vinegar

2 cups fine or medium cornmeal

2 tbsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 cup honey

2 tbsp molasses (or you can just do 2 tbsp extra honey)

11-oz can corn, drained

2 tbsp coconut or canola/veg oil

1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce

Preheat your oven to 420.

Combine the vinegar with the milk, and set aside. Combine dry ingredients and mix well. In a separate bowl, mix together the oil, applesauce, corn (you can smash it a little if you want), and milk-vinegar. Then pour the wet into dry and mix until just mixed. It will look really weird and foamy and you’ll probably think you did something wrong. Pour into a greased 8×8 dish and cook for about 25 minutes. Let cool.

Like I mentioned earlier this week, Josh and I have fallen in love with cooking our own chickpeas and using them as a base for our lunches. When I saw this recipe on Smitten Kitchen I knew it’d be perfect for us to make. I made a few adjustments (mainly leaving out all of the parsley. Bleh) and think the results turned out to be pretty fantastic!

Another great thing about this recipe is how long it lasts. I made ours on Sunday, and my leftovers today will be every bit as good, if not better, than it was when I first made it.

Obviously you can make this with canned chickpeas and buy pre-roasted red peppers, but making it from scratch will result in a tastier and less expensive final product. If you’re going to use canned chickpeas, I’d say use 3-4 cans.

Also, I wound up doing a quick roasting of the garlic cloves in a dry skillet before mixing into the dressing (skin on, over medium heat, until the skin on all sides turns golden brown). Josh doesn’t love to eat a lot of raw garlic at work.

Chickpeas (garbonzo beans) have become one of our favorite lunchtime ingredients. They add protein and heft to salads and are easy to find. I was trying for a while to keep a can or two on hand at all times, just so I could throw them into various dishes that needed a little something more, but we kept coming across a few problems.

For one thing, not all canned chickpeas are created equal. While Whole Foods has, in my opinion, the best and creamiest canned version, other brands are often mealy or almost crunchy and gritty. Not exactly a pleasure to eat.

The second problem was cost. While one can isn’t too bad, I’d have to buy at least four cans, probably more, in order to make a substantial base for our lunches. Once you start adding all of the fun ingredients on top of that, our little money saving lunches aren’t saving us quite so much money anymore.

I kept seeing things about how superior and incredibly easy cooking dried chickpeas was, so one day I decided to give it a go. I looked around to find the best and easiest version (Alton Brown, for the win!) and bought some dried chickpeas.

The results blew Josh and I away! We seriously had no idea that chickpeas could be so good. I’ll happily eat these by the spoonful with just a tiny sprinkle of sea salt, which I never in a million years would do with even the best canned version. Plus, they are CHEAP. As in, $1.49/pound for organic cheap. One pound of dried gets me the equivalent of 3-4 cans of chickpeas. Um, yes, we have a winner.

If I had more freezer space I’d portion them out into two cup servings and freeze the cooked beans, since they reheat perfectly. Then you still have most of the convenience of the canned ones.

The “recipe” could not be any easier.

1 lb dried chickpeas, rinsed and drained.

7 cups water (though I never actually measure it out)

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

Simply combine all the ingredients in your crockpot and cook on high for about 4 hours. I tend to start tasting around the three and a half hour mark so that I can control how soft they become. I like them to still be a little firm for cold salads, but I’ll let them cook longer for something like hummus.

We’ve had an incredible fall so far, full of sunshine and mild weather. People have been flying in hot air balloons (Seriously. Right over our house), and the mums are starting to bloom.

While today’s high here in Middle TN is a lovely 80 degrees, the same can’t be said for the rest of the weekend. A cold front moves in tonight, and we’re expecting some cold and drizzly weather for the next few days.

Since this is the first cold and gross weekend this year, I decided to just embrace it. I made a short of list of cozy foods to make, and I’ll be puttering around my kitchen all day. Sounds pretty heavenly, now that I think about it.

On the list for this weekend:

Split pea soup- One of our favorites, though it certainly won’t win any awards for most attractive. It’s delicious, hearty, and cheap. Perfect.

Stewed collards with chorizo and garlic- This is a new recipe that I’m really excited to try! Our market is full of greens, and I found out that Josh has never had collard greens. The Southern girl in me is shocked and appalled. Obviously that needs to change immediately.

Bone broth- I love having homemade broth on hand. I make big batches, portion them out, and freeze them. I ordered 4 lbs of bones from a local farm (2 lbs chicken bones, 2 lbs beef bones), and I think I’m going to start with chicken. This will literally simmer away unattended for days, and make my house smell incredible. My friend Lindsay wrote a great post about why it’s worth it to make your own, plus some great tips.

In keeping with the fall theme that we apparently have going on this week, here’s a great recipe for a pumpkin spice coffee creamer that I’ve been loving! Coffee creamer is one of the dairy items that I refuse to give up, but I feel a lot better knowing that I’ve made my own out of quality ingredients. Plus, this way I can make it as creamy/sweet as I’d like!

I was out of pumpkin pie spice, hence the assortment of spice bottles in the photo above. I mixed together a quick batch of spice on my own, and now I’m set for a while. This is a very good thing, since I have a feeling I’ll be making a lot of this coffee creamer.

Also, the recipe calls for a mix of whole milk and heavy cream. I just used half and half instead, but I’m thinking that this week I’m going to try it with just heavy cream. That way I won’t need to use as much on a daily basis, so one batch should last me longer.

Whisk milk, cream, pumpkin, syrup, and pumpkin spice together over medium heat. When it gets steamy remove from heat and add in the vanilla. Use a strainer (very important!) to transfer the cream into a jar or pitcher. I used a few small mason jars, because I’m Southern and I always have plenty of those. Try not to drink a spoonful. Let it cool down and stick it the refrigerator.

We all have certain flavors that trigger memories from our childhood. One of my most vivid is dill, which reminds me of the pickles my grandmother always seemed to have in her fridge all summer. She never canned them, but kept them in a big jar that she’d replenish whenever she ran out. Considering what a greedy little pig I was, I’m sure I helped make that a regular event.

While these are best with homegrown cucumbers, store-bought can be used instead. Just make sure that they’re small and thin-skinned.

We lost my sweet Grandmommy in June very unexpectedly, so I think I’ll make some pickles this weekend in her honor to celebrate the end of summer.